An Algonquin Maiden A Romance of the Early Days of Upper CanadaBy: A. Ethelwyn Wetherald (1857-1940)

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AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN

A ROMANCE OF THE EARLY DAYS OF UPPER CANADA

BY

G. MERCER ADAM AND A. ETHELWYN WETHERALD

Entered according to Act of Parliament, in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty six, by GRAEME MERCER ADAM and AGNES ETHELWYN WETHERALD, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, Ottawa.

TO THE VETERAN PUBLISHER, John Lovell, Esq., OF MONTREAL, WHO HAS SPENT A LONG AND BUSY LIFE IN THE VARIED SERVICE OF HIS COUNTRY, THIS MODEST EFFORT IN THE FIELD OF CANADIAN FICTION IS AFFECTIONATELY AND ADMIRINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORS.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

The Young Master of Pine Towers

CHAPTER II.

An Upper Canadian Household

CHAPTER III.

"When Summer Days were Fair"

CHAPTER IV.

Indian Annals and Legends

CHAPTER V.

The Algonquin Maiden

CHAPTER VI.

Catechisings

CHAPTER VII.

An Accident

CHAPTER VIII.

Convalescence

CHAPTER IX.

On the Way to the Capital

CHAPTER X.

York and the Maitlands

CHAPTER XI.

After "The Ball"

CHAPTER XII.

A Kiss and its Consequences

CHAPTER XIII.

Rival Attractions

CHAPTER XIV.

"Muddy Little York"

CHAPTER XV.

Politics at the Capital

CHAPTER XVI.

Love's Protestations

CHAPTER XVII.

A Picnic in the Woods

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Commodore Surrenders

CHAPTER XIX.

At Stamford Cottage

CHAPTER XX.

The Coming of Wanda

CHAPTER XXI.

The Passing of Wanda

CHAPTER XXII.

Love's Rewards

AN ALGONQUIN MAIDEN.

CHAPTER I.

THE YOUNG MASTER OF PINE TOWERS.

It was a May morning in 1825 spring time of the year, late spring time of the century. It had rained the night before, and a warm pallor in the eastern sky was the only indication that the sun was trying to pierce the gray dome of nearly opaque watery fog, lying low upon that part of the world now known as the city of Toronto, then the town of Little York. This cluster of five or six hundred houses had taken up a determined position at the edge of a forest then gloomily forbidding in its aspect, interminable in extent, inexorable in its resistance to the shy or to the sturdy approaches of the settler. Man versus nature the successive assaults of perishing humanity upon the almost impregnable fortresses of the eternal forests this was the struggle of Canadian civilization, and its hard won triumphs were bodied forth in the scattered roofs of these cheap habitations. Seen now through soft gradations of vapoury gloom, they took on a poetic significance, as tenderly intangible as the romantic halo which the mist of years loves to weave about the heads of departed pioneers, who, for the most part, lived out their lives in plain, grim style, without any thought of posing as "conquering heroes" in the eyes of succeeding generations.

From the portico of one of these dwellings, under a wind swayed sign which advertised it to be a place of rest and refreshment, stepped a man of more than middle age, whose nervous gait and anxious face betokened a mind ill at ease. He had the look and air of a highly respectable old servitor, one who had followed the family to whom he was bound by ties of life long service to a country of which he strongly disapproved, not because it offered a poor field for his own advancement, but because, to his mind, its crude society and narrow opportunities ill became the distinction of the Old World family to whose fortunes he was devoted. Time had softened these prejudices, but had failed to melt them; and if they had a pardonable fashion of congealing under the stress of the Canadian winter, they generally showed signs of a thaw at the approach of spring. At the present moment he had no thought, no eyes, for anything save a mist enshrouded speck far off across the waters of Lake Ontario. All the impatience and longing of the week just past found vent through his eyes, as he watched that pale, uncertain, scarcely visible mote on the horizon... Continue reading book >>